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Short takes

Rickenbacker makes its case

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Thursday February 6, 2014 5:32 AM

The U.S. military has had to make some difficult but necessary decisions in recent years to trim
expenses and re-allocate resources. Throughout the years, though, the Rickenbacker Air National
Guard base has served the country well, and been an important center of jobs and economic activity
for central Ohio.

Despite being part of a military and defense sector that employs more than 13,000 people and
boasts about $2.2 billion in assets in the Columbus region, Rickenbacker has kept a relatively low
profile at home and in Washington. After being passed over for some new planes recently and with
more changes likely on the way, military, political and civic leaders know it makes sense for the
base to do more to toot its own horn.

Leaders from the Columbus Chamber joined with military personnel recently to host local and
national officials at Rickenbacker. They made it clear that they perform valuable roles in national
defense, and that they are eager and ready to take on more.

“I don’t think most people really have any idea, have any clue, of all the missions that are
completed around the world because of the forces that are based right here in Columbus,” said Lt.
Col. Jeffrey Suver, commander of the Ohio National Guard’s 52nd Support Team.

Sen. Rob Portman knows; he was at the event, along with representatives from the offices of
House Speaker John Boehner and Sen. Sherrod Brown. Portman vowed that he’s making a “full-court
press” to maintain and expand Ohio’s military power.

Best of luck to base leadership in making its case, and thanks to Ohio’s leadership in
Washington for the support.

Project should benefit kids and community

The South Linden neighborhood, and kids lucky enough to hang out at St. Stephen's Community
House, stand to reap all sorts of good things from a project in the works for next summer: lessons
in healthy eating, produce for community food banks, a meaningful project for kids to work on, and
a nifty science lesson thrown in.

Thanks to a $1 lease of land from the city of Columbus and a $300,000 grant from OhioHealth, St.
Stephen's will build a greenhouse with an aquaponics system.

That's one in which fish tanks and plant beds are stacked atop each other and feed each other:
Fish waste nurtures the plants, and the plants put nutrients in the water for the fish.

The project is a bigger-sized reprise of a small pilot program St. Stephen's ran last summer,
with students from Linden-McKinley High School. It proved so popular that St. Stephen's wanted to
share it with the larger community, said Michelle Mills, St. Stephens chief executive officer and a
City Council member.

Students in St. Stephen's after-school and summer programs in science, technology, engineering
and math programs will build the systems and be responsible for the fish and plants. (One incentive
to be careful: Mills decrees that kids will have to bury any fish they kill.)

Giving kids something productive to do in the summer always is worthwhile, for the lessons it
imparts in responsibility and the sense of accomplishment that hard work can bring.